Posted on 02/19/2021 6:44:54 AM PST by SJackson
In a February 2021 bulletin sent out by the Oregon Department of Education, just below a feature on Black History Month, is a notice announcing a “micro-course” for educators titled “A Pathway to Math Equity.” The course promises to provide educators with “key tools for engagement [and] strategies to improve equitable outcomes for Black, Latinx, and multilingual students” and knowledge on how to “dismantle racism in mathematics instruction.”
One might well ask, how can math—which more than any other subject deals in the realm of pure logic—possibly be racist? The “toolkit” provided as a resource for the first course session is happy to answer this question.
“We see white supremacy culture show up in the mathematics classroom even as we carry out our professional responsibilities” explains the guide. Educators must therefore take on the responsibility for “visibilizing the toxic characteristics of white supremacy culture with respect to math.”
These “toxic characteristics” include basic academic principles such as:
The focus is on getting the “right” answer.
Teachers are teachers and students are learners.
Independent practice is valued over teamwork or collaboration.
Students are required to “show their work.”
Grading practices are focused on lack of knowledge.
“Real-world math” is valued over math in the real world.
Students are tracked (into courses/pathways and within the classroom).
Participation structures reinforce dominant ways of being.
The toolkit goes on to state that “The concept of mathematics being purely objective is unequivocally false, and teaching it is even much less so. Upholding the idea that there are always right and wrong answers perpetuate objectivity as well as fear of open conflict.”
The course also contains numerous suggestions for educators who want to fight racism in their math classrooms. These include:
Adapt homework policies to fit the needs of students of color.
Expose students to examples of people who have used math as resistance. Provide learning opportunities that use math as resistance.
Identify and challenge the ways that math is used to uphold capitalist, imperialist, and racist views.
The course materials repeatedly echo the tropes of critical race theory, insisting that “only white people can be racist in our society, because only white people as a group have that power.” Another section of the workbook asserts that “In some cases, the prejudices of oppressed people (‘you can’t trust the police’) are necessary for survival.”
If Oregon’s educational bureaucrats truly want to improve the education of African-American students, this racist exercise in lowering expectations and subverting classroom norms is a dismal place to start.
How will they know if they got the right amount of fried chicken in their bucket if they cant count?
even if you have the power to destroy a planet with a punch, 1+1 still equals 2.
So math is racist, because one cannot expect blacks and hispanics to get the right answer and show how they did it? I don’t think math is the racist element here...
Glad I won’t be around in 50 years to marvel at all of the “Woke age” engineering.
They dont want Blacks and Hispanics to improve in order to reach “equitable outcomes”.
They want whites to worsen so that its equal.
Take your kids out of public schools!
While a lot of this is nutty racism, there is a leftist agenda to keep people dumb and dismantle society including the family, religion, economy and education.
““In philosophy, or religion, or ethics, or politics, two and two might make five, but when one was designing a gun or an aeroplane they had to make four.” ― George Orwell, “
There ya go, the Colonel is behind all this so he can rip people off on their chicken!
They should all go straight to Chemistry Class with this attitude and put it into Practice, Videotape it please so we have some entertainment from your stupidity.
Because getting an answer wrong is the difference between killing people and your bridge holding.
What are they teaching? Theoretical high-order math to elementary kids?
No. They are dumbing them down. In Portsmouth, Virginia, majority Black city, the school board decided to cut Algebra from the high school requirement because maff hard or something.
It was the parents of these Black kids who screamed loud enough to be heard and algebra was not cut. The parents were invested enough in their children’s education to stop the social justice nonsense.
The real “solution” to the problem is to get rid of standardized testing altogether. No testing means no worries over right or wrong answers. No testing, no grading, no standards of any kind.
Does anyone ever tell these psychopaths to go F themselves? Seriously, why is his tolerated for even a micro-second?
I had an epiphany last night.
I might be a bit behind the curve, but it finally made it through my thick skull.
Whenever you see the words ‘Racism,’ ‘Whiteness,’ or ‘White Supremacy’ substitute ‘Western Civilization.’
Because Western Civilization, the very thing that gave those people free speech and a decent standard of living, is what they are attacking with those words.
It time to stop accepting the nihilistic Left’s control of the language.
I did a search for “math as resistance” and all I got were hits on how to calculate the electrical resistance of an electric circuit — with emphasis on getting the right answer.
This must be the brainchild of a sociologist (or someone in an equally useless field).
The "white supremacy" is not in the teaching of proper mathematics. It is in the attitude that one should not even bother to try to teach minority students. By refusing to teach minority children in an academically rigorous manner, white supremacist leftists can guarantee that those kids will never have a chance to escape poverty and make a decent life.
Well, it must be racist for engineers building all those suspension and cantilevered bridge having to use all those pesky math formulas to make them safe for travel.
Chess board figures.....blue, pink and blue and pink striped? Turn the switch on the bottom and blue becomes pink and so on...
I read an article about how covid can have an adverse effect on the mind. I think, trying to understand the liberal thought processes could be a greater threat to one's mind!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.